


Another Man's Child

by CanadianSassenach



Series: Another Man's Child [1]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-07-23 09:46:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanadianSassenach/pseuds/CanadianSassenach
Summary: What if Frank could father a child?  The tables turn in this AU Outlander fanfic and Claire again jumps time back to her husband carrying another man's child.





	1. Frank's Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into Outlander AU fanfiction. I hope you enjoy!

**Another Man’s Child**

_April 1954_

The fight had been horrible.  Claire sat on the floor of Frank’s study, tears streaming down her face, her arms hugged tight around her abdomen.  Frank was dead.  Killed in a car accident last night, only minutes after leaving their house in Boston.  He had stormed out in a rage after their fight … well actually, in the middle of the fight since they had resolved nothing.   It had been raining hard, he was beyond angry, and had apparently gone straight through a stop sign hitting a transport truck head on.  Killed on impact.  Dead. 

Claire’s world was turned completely upside down, again. She wept for Frank - for all that he was and would no longer be, and for the love that she once had for him.  She wept for Brianna, who would wake up and be told that the only father she had ever known was dead.  

But more than anything else she was simply overcome with emotion – Jamie had not died at Culloden. 

She sobbed in anger.  Angry that Frank had known and not told her.  Angry that she hadn’t looked for Jamie herself and angry that she could have gone back to be with Jamie.  Angry that Brianna did not know her real father. 

Finally, she cried with relief.  Jamie might be alive.  She and Brianna might be able to go back, to be with him.   Claire took one last shuddering sob, and then held her breath trying to regain control.  None of this was good for the baby.  She clutched her abdomen, centering herself, focusing on her children.  She needed to be strong for Brianna, and this unborn child, and she needed to decide quickly what she was going to do next.  She sat on the floor of Frank’s study for over an hour.  Just breathing.  Looking around at the mess of papers on the floor, the overturned chair and the sun rising over the horizon through the large bay window.  As she sat she relived the events of the last few hours over and over in her mind.

_________________

Claire had spent most of the day at Harvard University where she was in her first year of medical school.  She had been nauseous during their first period and her friend, Joe Abernathy, had jokingly asked if she was pregnant.  “Lady Jane, you are one incredible lady – medical school and pregnant at the same time.  No man could do that!”

Claire had responded “There is no way I’m pregnant Joe.  Must be something I ate for breakfast. Or, actually my lack of breakfast.”

“If you say so LJ, but I knew the minute that I got home one day that Gail was pregnant with Lenny, and I‘ve got that same feeling now. So just humour me and accept my congrats, if I’m right”.  Joe replied certainty ringing in his voice.

“I cannot be pregnant.” Claire moaned.  “I am not superwoman.  I’m barely able to juggle Brianna and attending school most days. Besides, Frank can’t ….” She stopped herself before she continued.  Everyone believed that Frank was Brianna’s biological father.  Frank however believed that he couldn’t father a child.  Claire’s mind moved into overdrive: They rarely had sex these days, but a couple of weeks ago Frank had come home in an exuberant mood – he was on track for tenure at the University.  Then Brianna had lost her first tooth and they had celebrated with cake and later an entire bottle of wine. One thing led to another and they had continued the celebration in bed. “Jesus H Roosevelt Christ, I might be pregnant.” 

“Come on LJ, let’s get you tested.  There’s gotta be some benefits to spending our days stuck in this place,” replied Joe. The dissected frog reacted to the elevated levels of hCG hormones in her urine[1] and so when Claire went home that afternoon she was as sure as she could be that she was pregnant.  Her next thought was that she needed to tell Frank.  She was shaky and unsure how she felt about having another baby, Frank’s baby.  However, she was sure that Frank would be over the moon. He loved Brianna and was a wonderful father. 

Frank had worked late that night and gotten home around 9pm.  Brianna was in bed and Claire had had some time to prepare what she was going to say.  “Hello Claire, nice day?” Frank called out from the front entrance. Hanging his hat and coat on the stand at the door he’d then headed straight for his study.  Claire followed him in and her glass face must have given her away.  “Is something wrong?  Is it Brianna?” Frank had asked almost immediately when he saw her.

So much for best laid plans: dinner, wine, then news.  “Well, I … I think I’m pregnant.” She blurted out. “I mean I’m not sure. Pregnancy tests have been known to give false positives. But Joe and I were careful, and the test confirmed it, and I’m nauseous like before and … I’m pregnant, probably”. She finished, looking down at her hands.

At first Frank said nothing.  Finally, Claire looked up and saw the pure anguish on his face.  “I will not raise another man’s child – AGAIN.”  Frank said in an eerily calm voice.  “Did you think you could pass another cuckoo bird off as my child. Think again.  How?  Was it not enough to have Brianna? To have gone off once and gotten knocked up and then asked that I take you back? Who is the father this time?  Another jaunt back in time?  Found out your precious Jamie was alive, and you ran back to him? Another secret husband. HOW!!??” 

Claire was having a hard time processing Frank’s reaction. She had been sure that he would be happy.  It had never occurred to Claire that he would think she’d slept with someone else.  ‘Calm down Beauchamp,’ she thought, ‘He just needs some time to process.  I was so naïve, of course that’s what he thought.’ 

“Frank, this is your baby,” She paused waiting for her words to sink in.  “Think of the timing.  It must have happened when we had sex that night a few weeks ago,” She looked up again and saw Frank’s stare boring down on her.  “I know this wasn’t planned. At all. But a baby, your baby.  You love Brianna, I thought you’d be happy.”

Frank exploded, “Happy, happy! You mean you thought I wouldn’t even question the paternity this time.  Well it’s pretty hard to get over your wife going off with another man, supposedly getting married and coming back pregnant with his baby. And then explaining that she had been sucked back in time but then had to come back to you. Oh, and can you raise his baby?”  Frank continued, now clearly relishing a rant that was a long time in the making, “Also, my beloved, returned wife no longer loves me, but let’s pretend we are one big happy family!  I will NOT raise another man’s child again. Final. End of story.”

Claire was not good at shrinking in the face of a confrontation and her instinct to fight back was clearly engaged now. “What the hell, Frank!  It was you that insisted we carry on as one happy family.  You that insisted that no one know that Brianna was not your own.  You that moved us across the bloody Atlantic Ocean where no one knew us so that fictional life could just play out.  I did exactly what you asked.  I’ve never even hinted that Brianna is not your child, that she has a father who was willing to lose her to ensure her safety.”  Claire was enraged and only now was it sinking in what Frank had said earlier about Jamie.  “And what the hell do you mean ‘Did I find out Jamie was alive’? WHAT DO YOU KNOW?”

It was then that Frank pulled a folder from the bottom drawer of his desk filled with papers and flung it at Claire, scattering the papers around the room.  “You know exactly what I mean. James Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser did not die at Culloden.  He went back home injured and survived as an outcast for years,” Frank spat out.  “If you don’t know then I’m glad to be the one to shatter your illusions!”

With that, Frank stalked out of the room.  Claire vaguely heard him grab his keys, slam the front door and start the car.  Her entire being had stopped at Frank’s words – Jamie was alive, or at least he could be alive.

_______

Claire was once again pregnant and without her husband.  She stood up and faced the realization that her best option was to return to her 'other' husband. “Well my little one, today will be a day of reckoning.  What should we do?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END NOTE: [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/history-home-pregnancy-test/396077/ The first true precursor to today’s pregnancy test was developed in 1927, when the German scientists Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek discovered that injecting a pregnant woman’s urine into a mouse or rat would send it into heat, which could be ascertained only by dissecting the animal. Over the next few decades, the AZ test, named after its creators, replaced rodents with rabbits—the phrase “the rabbit died” was, at one point, a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test—and then frogs (so many frogs were exported from southern Africa to the U.S. for pregnancy tests, in fact, that some scientists believe they may be the source of a fungal disease currently threatening the country’s amphibian population). In the 1960s, scientists ditched the animals entirely, turning instead to immunoassays, or tests that combined hCG, hCG antibodies, and urine—if a woman was pregnant, the mixture would clump together in certain distinctive ways.


	2. A Decision Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire prepares for her return to Craigh Na Dun with Brianna.

_ Dear Joe, _

_ I cannot thank you enough for everything that you have done for Brianna and I over the past two weeks.  You and Gail were my lifeline of support and without you I would have been lost in the details. Most of all, thank you for everything that you did for Brianna. She is so little and while she doesn't truly understand that Frank is gone forever, your careful patience explaining things over and over to her gave me the peace to move on with other things – Frank's funeral and so much more. _

_ It is the so much more that I want to explain to you in this letter.  Please know that I am not writing this letter in a sort of delusional state of mind, and while what I write will seem completely incomprehensible, it is all true.   _

_ Although you have never said anything to me, I know that you are a keen enough observer to have noted that Brianna is not Frank`s biological child.   Brianna's true father shares her beautiful red hair, vibrant blue eyes and her determined nature - he was, and is, the love of my life. This is the secret that I entrust to you in this letter.  _

_ Almost 10 years ago I went on a holiday in Scotland with Frank to celebrate the end of the war and to try to reconnect after our separation during that terrible time. While in Scotland I disappeared for the next three years. I have only told a few people what happened during that extraordinary time - you are the fourth. I travelled back in time 200 years into the past. I’ll pause here for a moment.  I know this is an incredulous statement, impossible you will likely say, but it is not. I’ve included the news clippings from the Scotland press of my disappearance in 1945 and my reappearance in 1948, but this of course proves nothing of the extraordinary tale of where I was for those 3 years.  For that you will have to simply believe me. During our stay in Inverness Frank and I visited a set of nearby standing stones, called Craigh Na Dun, to watch a group of women perform their rendition of an old Druid ritual honouring the spring equinox. When I returned the next day to pick some of the flora in the area I touched one of the stones and was pulled back in time to Scotland in the year 1743.  There is so much I long to tell you about my time there, but there isn’t enough time or paper for me to get it all out, so I will keep this fairly short. I met and quickly fell in love with one of the Scottish men that I met soon after I arrived - James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. He was the laird of a small Scottish estate and ultimately we became deeply involved in the Jacobite rising led by Bonny Prince Charles (who was not so bonny in person).  Jamie and I were married and he is Brianna’s true father. I returned to 1948 on the eve of the battle of Culloden through the same standing stones as before. Jamie thought this was the only way to keep me and our unborn baby safe. You see he was a warrior who fought with the Bonny Prince (not happily) and even my rudimentary knowledge of Scottish history told us that the Scots would not win the battle at Culloden. Jamie also wanted to ensure the best future for the baby - I lost our first daughter, Faith, who was stillborn.  Jamie couldn’t pass through the stones with me as apparently this is something only certain people can do and he fully intended to die with his clansman at Culloden. When I returned I told Frank this same truth of where I had been and while he didn’t believe me at first he came to after time. _

_ The night Frank died we had a terrible fight.  I told him about my pregnancy and he was furious as he believed that I had had an affair (another affair I suppose in his eyes).  During the fight he revealed to me that he believed Jamie had survived Culloden and gone back to his family home. In this package is all of the research Frank assembled. I ask that you keep it for me and for Brianna should she decide to return one day.   That brings me to my last bit of news, I have decided to return to Scotland and to Jamie. If everything works as it did before the stones should return us to Scotland 1752 and if Frank’s research is correct Jamie will still be living in hiding near his family home.   Before you ask, yes, I have thought long and hard about this and ultimately decided that there is no decision to make, Jamie is my soul. Brianna deserves to know her true father and he deserves to know the daughter he gave up everything for. So now I will give up hot baths and modern medicine and chocolate and return my heart to where it has always belonged.  _

_ Finally, in this package is one last document, a power of attorney giving you full decision making power over my affairs.  If Brianna and I don’t return within the year please sell the house and all of my assets and put them into a trust for Brianna - just in case.  Goodbye my friend.  _

_ Always, Claire _

\----------------

 

The last month had passed in a blur of activity and decisions.  Frank’s research had been detailed and contained quite a few clues to Jamie’s life and whereabouts over the last 5-6 years. Of course it would be, Frank was nothing if not thorough and professional.  From the records he collected it looked like Jamie had survived Culloden and been spared an immediate execution by the British courtesy of the Duke of Pardloe and was sent home to Lallybroch. It wasn’t clear from the records, but Frank’s notes indicated that he thought Jamie was likely the person told of in the folklore legend of the Dunbonnet, a highland recluse wanted by the British on suspicion that he was the Jacobite traitor, Red Jamie.  

Mrs. Graham had been a godsend since Claire had arrived on Reverend Wakefield’s doorstep ten days ago.  She had spent countless hours sewing clothing for Claire and Brianna while watching Brianna as Claire frantically tried to organize all of the details she could think of before they went back through to stones.  

“Claire, I dinnae ken if we have it all figured out, but ye’ll be sure to be better off than last time,”  Mrs. Graham had remarked as they sat drinking the last dredges of their tea the night before.

“Yes, I can’t thank you enough for everything that you’ve done for me and Brianna.  I just...” Claire stopped and collected her thoughts and courage, “I just hope it is enough.” She stood and the two friends embraced before heading up to bed.

The next morning was Beltane and Mrs. Graham drove Claire and Brianna to Craigh Na Dun.  Both were dressed in their new dresses and had leather packs with them. Brianna’s pack was small and had extra underclothes, her two favourite books - Mary Poppins and Meggy MacIntosh ******  - and a rag doll that Mrs. Graham had also made for her.  Claire’s pack held a change of clothes, two lined journal books - one with copious medical notes she had made during school and in the last month and another blank one for further writing - pencils, a pouch with three scalpels, a few hypodermic syringes and needles and ten ampoules of penicillin, as well as a glass jar filled with water, some of Mrs. Graham’s hard biscuits and apples. Sewn into hidden pockets in Claire and Brianna’s skirts were as many old coins and jewelry as she had been able to collect. Finally, her pack contained a tin box filled with safety pins of differing sizes.  This had been a last minute addition put in when Claire was shopping and noticed a mother changing her baby’s nappy. ‘Safety pins, one more thing I will have to do without when this little one is born’, thought Claire and then she’d wondered why. ‘They won’t be invented until the 1800’s but they are just bent metal, surely I can tweek history just a little.’ 

As they walked up Craigh Na Dun hill the buzzing began to hit Claire and she stopped for a moment to catch herself.  Mrs. Graham called to Brianna to slow down and wait for them and the little girl darted back to her mother with a wide smile on her face.

“Mama look, pretty little flowers!” Brianna exclaimed, clearly excited to be outside on an adventure when the previous weeks had been long and tedious.  

“Yes darling, those are forget-me-nots, ” Claire replied. “Can you hear the buzzing Brianna? Like honey bees?” she asked next.

“Buzzing?  No bees Mama, those flowers are no good for bees” Brianna responded. “Can I pick the flowers up?”

Claire crouched down and spoke directly to Brianna capturing her full attention now, “Brianna, honey, just listen. Do you hear the buzzing  - like this HHHMMMZZZZ, HMMMZZZZ?”

“No. No bees Mama, no hummy bees,” said Brianna.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** END NOTE: I couldn't resist putting in this book - take a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meggy_MacIntosh


	3. Back in Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another trip back in time for Claire ... and Brianna?

Claire glanced up at Mrs. Graham, unable to hide the worry in her expression. She had simply not allowed herself to entertain the idea that Brianna wouldn’t be able to pass through the stones with her.   

“Lass, isn’t this a grand place?”  Mrs. Graham said seeking to distract both Claire and Brianna. Spreading out a plaid blanket and reaching into the food basket she carried, she brought out a piece of toffee that she knew Brianna loved.  “Let’s have our little picnic.”

Brianna happily sat down and reached for the toffee.  “Tank you! I love this hill. It has gots lots of little flowers. Can we make a flower chain Mama?” 

“Maybe in a bit Bree, for now let’s just sit for a moment and feel the sunshine. Isn’t it nice and warm on our faces?”  Claire seized on Mrs. Graham’s lead and tried to relax, just to let them sit for a moment and see what happened. 

“Okay Mama.  It’s like the beach, when my hair was all sunny, and then I got all wet, and then the sun dried it up again!  Remember the beach Mama, with the big waves and the sandy castle I made with Daddy?” Brianna continued to chat about the day they had all spent in Cape Cod last summer.  It was one of the truly happy, carefree days they had spent as an entire family.

“I remember Bree, you loved the big waves.  You and Daddy played in the waves for such a long time.” 

“I miss Daddy.  And I miss the beach.” Brianna stated in the way that only a five year old can equate the loss of a parent with the loss of a day at the beach.

“I know luvy, Daddy misses you too.  But he’s watching you from up in heaven with the angels,” Claire reminded her, repeating a conversation they had had many times in the month since Frank’s death. 

They finished their small picnic and Mrs. Graham started to pack up the basket and fold the blanket while Brianna picked flowers and started the explore the hill.  Claire was determined to move forward still unable to process the idea they may not be able to return to Jamie - if Brianna was unable to pass through the stones she wouldn’t be going anywhere.   

“Oh Mama, look!”  Brianna exclaimed pointing up toward the stones of Craigh Na Dun.  “No touching, Daddy said we mustn’t touch the big stones. Look.” 

“Bree, what did Daddy say about the stones?”  Claire asked, puzzled at her recognition of the stones.

“Daddy showed me a picture of the big stones and said we must never touch them.  Is that right Mama, no touching the big stones?” Brianna said, proud of herself for recounting a lesson that Frank had clearly taken care to teach her.

“That is right, Bree.  We must never touch the big stones without Mama helping you.  Just like the oven, little girls must never touch the oven without an adult.  Remember when you were making biscuits with Mrs. Graham and she said you could help only when she was there to take them out of the hot oven?”  Claire replied, trying to understand what lesson Frank had taught her.

“Daddy said no touching, just like I can’t touch the oven.  Mama does Daddy have an oven in heaven?” Brianna asked, turning to her new favourite subject whenever Frank came up - What is he doing in heaven?

“I don’t know Bree.  There is so much yummy food in heaven I don’t think Daddy ever needs an oven.”  Claire responded. The buzzing was getting stronger and she hoped Brianna might be able to hear it too.  “Bree baby, what do you hear now? Can you hear the hhhmmmzzz noises?”

“I hear the big waves Mama.  Are we going to the beachy? Can I play in the waves again?” Brianna responded, “But not with Daddy ‘cause he’s in heaven, right?”  

Claire seized on her comment about hearing the waves and asked hopefully “Bree, you can hear whooshing noises like the big waves made at the ocean?” Maybe the sounds were different for Brianna.

“Yes Mama.  I like to play in the waves in my bathee-suit”  called out Brianna as she dashed about picking more flowers. 

Claire turned to Mrs. Graham and asked, “Can you hear anything that sounds like the waves of the ocean?”

“Nay, I dinnae hear any sounds of water. Only the rustle of the wind through the heather.  Perhaps the lassie hears the stones differently than ye do?” Mrs. Graham responded, though she too was worried that Brianna wouldn’t be able to pass through the stones.

Claire decided there was nothing to do but go forward.  They made the trek up to the top of the hill and Claire called for Brianna to come over and take her hand. 

“Bree, we are going touch that big stone together, okay?”  Claire asked looking down at Brianna who looked back up at her mother with a wide smile of excitement.

“Okay Mama. Is it gonna be hot like the oven?”  Brianna queried back, transferring all of the flowers that she had been gathering to her left hand and offering up her free hand for Claire to take. 

“No darling, it won’t be hot but you must not let go of my hand. Can you do that?”  Claire’s mood was turning serious and this scared Brianna a bit. “Yes, Mama I will always hold your hand,” she answered solemnly.

Claire turned back to Mrs. Graham and the two women embraced, an intense look passing between them that said all that they needed to convey - good luck, thank you, godspeed, be safe, be happy.  Mrs. Graham then knelt down to hug Brianna allowing Claire to secure the picnic basket with the remaining food and supplies to her pack. 

“Well this is it,” Claire announced.  “Bree, honey, when we count to three we are going to put our hands on the stone and hold on tight.”

Claire reached out with the hand that clutched Brianna’s putting both of their hands on the stone face simultaneously while holding tight to Brianna’s waist as she moved them both forward. “One, two … three.” 

Almost immediately the stones began to scream as they had both times before.  Claire steeled herself to the horror of the noises and held tight to Brianna.  Then she heard Bree’s voice in the distance, whimpering “No Mama, I don’t like it. Make the bad noises stop.” 

Claire tried to respond to reassure Brianna that it would be over soon but the sounds of violence were all around her and it was overwhelming.  She began to feel the familiar weightless, spinning sensation and all of her other senses receded into the background. All of her senses except one, the feeling of Brianna’s hand slipping from her own.  Claire tried to lock her daughter to her, but rather than feeling her small body press up against hers Claire felt as though they were both ghost-like, bodies without substance slipping through each other. As suddenly as it all came on, the noises receded and she stumbled back to the ground within the circle of stones.  Disoriented and sick feeling, Claire sank back down to lie on the grass for just a moment only to bolt back up almost immediately as she thought of Brianna.

“Brianna! Bree, where are you?” Claire gasped, looking around frantically for any sign of her daughter.  A few metres away from Claire was Brianna’s pack and the blanket they’d picnicked on earlier that morning that Mrs. Graham had tucked into the pack’s straps as she’d hugged the little girl goodbye.  There was no sign of Mrs. Graham and Claire was subconsciously recognizing small indications that the hill was not the same as a few moment ago: subtle differences in the vegetation, some of the trees were smaller and others larger. She had definitely traveled through time, presumably back to the 1750’s following the pattern of her two previous trips through the stones.

Claire looked around frantically searching.  “Bree! Brianna, please answer me! Are you hurt?” Claire called out, beginning to panic. Then she spotted the flowers that Brianna had had clutched in her left hand.

 


End file.
